Tiger Time: Washington High students aid Franklin students

Dozens of Washington High School students are learning firsthand what it takes to encourage Massillon’s youngest students in their pursuits of academic goals. Every day, a small group of them visits Franklin Elementary School to offer the teachers there a helping hand during the designated “Tiger Time.”

Lauren Troyer never thought much about the challenges faced by her teachers. She never considered how difficult it is to keep an entire group of students on task, focused and engaged.

The Washington High School senior thinks about that now. And she has a greater respect for all her teachers because of it.

Troyer is just one of dozens of Washington High School students learning firsthand what it takes to encourage Massillon’s youngest students in their pursuits of academic goals. Every day, a small group of them visits Franklin Elementary School to offer the teachers there a helping hand during the designated “Tiger Time.”

Tiger Time, which was implemented at all three of the district’s elementary schools this year, is designed to provide teachers with a block of time they can use for specialized intervention. The aim is to provide small-group instruction to students needing a little extra help in a certain subject area or with specific educational concepts.

Franklin Elementary Principal Mike Medure knew that Tiger Time was critical to student achievement. Those 45 minutes set aside for intervention needed to be used wisely, and they needed to have an impact on the entire class.

That’s when Medure thought of the WHS students, specifically, those involved in the high school’s career and technology programs.

“We were looking for any help we could get,” Medure said. “I needed to get an extra person in the classroom to help out, because you need to give all the kids something to do and you want to make sure the teacher is uninterrupted. … I thought, ‘We have these kids at the high school, why not use them?’ ”

Dan Murphy, director of Career Tech at WHS, was immediately drawn to the idea. Service learning requirements are built into the curriculum of many career and technical-education programs, and Murphy saw Medure’s offer as a way for students to give back to the community.

“We encourage community involvement,” Murphy said. “The community has been so good to us as a school and so good to our kids. It’s a real important thing that our kids understand that it’s important to give back.”

It was a lesson the high school students immediately embraced. They jumped at the chance to go into the elementary school classrooms and work with kids.

Karen Deitrick, Washington High’s teaching profession instructor, worked with Murphy to devise a schedule for all career tech students who wanted to volunteer. Each student will visit Franklin classroom just a couple of times this year to ensure they are not missing too much of their own instructional time at WHS.

Through their volunteer efforts, though, the high school students are developing skills necessary for whatever profession they will choose. They’re solving problems, developing their communication skills and learning to think on their feet.

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“It (volunteering) gives everyone a little different perspective,” Murphy said. “No matter what program you are in, you have to work with people at some point, and you are constantly learning to stay abreast of what is going on.”

One high school student, when struggling to keep several Franklin students focused on their reading assignment, bet them he could finish the assignment before they did and offered “the change in his pocket” to any student who finished before him and answered all the questions on the worksheet correctly. That was enough of an incentive for the kids to buckle down and get to work.

Murphy laughed when that story was relayed to him. He has heard plenty of stories like that since the career tech students began volunteering. The high school students have discovered that they really do have the ability to affect the elementary students by encouraging learning and creativity.

“We have learned that the (elementary) kids are really receptive to having another voice teaching them,” Murphy said. “They respond well when working with the high school students.”